MEB, Chapter, & Veterans Affairs

There are several ways to get out of an Army enlistment.

First, you can bide your time until your "Expiration, Term of Service" (ETS). Assuming you don't do anything grossly negligent, you'll get out with an honorable discharge and get on with your life.

Second, you can do something bad, like continually refuse to show up for work, which will get you "chaptered out" with an other-than-honorable discharge. This will negatively and permanently affect your civilian career, but hey -- you got what you wanted.

You don't necessarily have to do anything particularly bad to get chaptered out. You can also get chaptered for failing (several times) to pass a the physical fitness test or for backsliding into obesity after successfully completing the overweight program.

Third, there's a medical evaluation board. If you sustain a significant permanent injury, the Army will hold a Medical Evaluation Board (MEB)to determine if you should be retained or released with monthly disability for the rest of your life.

Unfortunately, this creates an incentive to claim an injury, especially one that's difficult to quantify. Back pain, knee problems, and post-traumatic stress disorder are more difficult to confirm than, say, missing a leg. And mixed in with this incentive is a typical Army perspective: "you might as well try."

Sadly, this has created a backlog for the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Army's MEB process. We in the ground-level units are frustrated because it takes what seems like forever to vacate these positions and get more capable people. In the meantime, we have to use up more human resources to escort soldiers to their appointments -- each one missed just delays the process and costs the Army more money.

I heard of one soldier's story that perfectly illustrates this.

Soldier X was about to ETS in July. Although they had completed the Army's overweight program, they had failed to keep fit. That didn't matter, though, as they were about to start terminal leave (where you use up all your vacation days before you quit) and then get out.

In June, however, a doctor told them that they would be a good candidate for an MEB. Though this was clearly in violation of the existing policy against MEB initiations in the last year of a soldier's enlistment, for whatever reason it was approved.

Maddeningly, the soldier's enlistment was extended just so they could get an MEB and get out. Rather than get the soldier off the payroll and have the Department of Veterans Affairs handle the matter, the Army will now keep paying this person -- just so they can get out anyway.

While the soldier was set to ETS, it didn't make much difference that they had become overweight again; now that they're in the MEB process, they're ineligible to be chaptered out for being overweight.

What I can't figure is why the Army would do this. My only guess is that the Army is trying to relieve the burden on Veterans Affairs, but that's the only thing that makes any sense.